posted
My husband, Fahim, programmer and fellow writer, has written & released WriteTrack. WriteTrack is software designed for writers to track and make their writing submissions, ie articles, novels, short stories, etc to agents, editors, and publishers. It's free.
You can read more about it here, or download it directly from here.
Fahim is looking for feedback and feature suggestions. In non-geek speak, that means he wants to know what's wrong, what doesn't work, and what you think needs to be added or changed. Please go to his forum to give him aforementioned feedback and feature suggestions.
posted
Well, the database software I had been using has annoyed me for the last time. It keeps reversing the dates I put in, so that 01/02/2006 turns into 02/01/2006. So I'll try out Fahim's software and see if it's any better.
posted
You mean the dates are auto corrcting to British format. There may be a preference you could change.
Posts: 1683 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:You mean the dates are auto corrcting to British format. There may be a preference you could change.
Nope. It's an error, not an auto-correction. The input does require dates in British format, which doesn't bother me. So August 16, 2005 is entered as 16/08/2005. So January 2, 2006 would be 02/01/2006. Yet when I come back to it, it has been changed to 01/02/2006. No matter how many times I change it back, it never stays fixed.
So I tried out Fahim's program last night. It's mostly functional at this point, and I think it has a lot of potential. I have a list of comments that I'll post at his forums when I get a chance.
posted
And the point of this software is what? When John D. MacDonald started writing he kept 30 stories in the mail at a time. This was back in the 1940s. He worked on a typewriter. There were no computers. Yet he managed to keep track.
Would someone please tell me other than knowing which story is at which market, and when you sent it, what more do you need?
posted
It's the same point that any business software has: it makes it quicker and easier to keep track of information. Sure, you could do everything by hand, but I would rather spend that time writing (or procrastinating, as the case may be).
*taps foot impatiently*
Still waiting for the forum registration to go through...
posted
Mel, he's asleep (I have insomnia) and he approves manually due to excessive spammers in the past. He'll do it when he wakes up in *checks time* six more hours-ish.
It's that whole dang living halfway around the world from everyone else we communicate with online thing.
quote:other than knowing which story is at which market, and when you sent it, what more do you need?
Well . . . you might want to keep track of which stories have actually sold. Also how much you got paid for them. Also, how much you've spent on postage, paper for cover letters and printouts, envelopes, etc., for tax deduction purposes. Also, who is the editor at that market? If an editor changes magazines, for example, you don't want to submit your story to the new magazine when the editor has already seen it. In fact, you also want the name of the first reader (especially if the story never got to the editor's attention) for the same reason. You can also use this information to decide to resubmit to the same market, if both the first reader and the editor have changed.
Stuff like that. You don't need a computer program for any of this. And you can still type your stories on a typewriter. But who would want to?
[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited January 17, 2006).]
posted
Mel, assuming I remember this in the morning, I'll suggest to him that he make me a mod so I can approve new members. You know, make the lives of other people easier. Not you, unfortunately, cuz it'll be too late... Posts: 83 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Since I have no idea what your spreadsheet is like, this is impossible to answer completely.
What I can tell you, though, is that WriteTrack has a database of agents, publishers and the like, and not only can you use it to track your submissions, you can also use it to make your submissions. That is, it has mail merge with templates that you can use to send out printed queries or email queries.
posted
Whoah. That's pretty cool. I didn't know it had that stuff. I'll probably never use the mail merge feature, but just how extensive is that database?
Posts: 491 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
You have to build the database yourself. Would your really want to have to scroll through a hundred markets that you've never used to find one that you have?
The way I do it is every time I send a story to a completely new market, I enter the information then. That way my database only contains markets that I've actually subbed to.
posted
Fahim has considered compiling a database of all agencies/publishers that we have information for, but it would be labour intensive. Also, that database, if he/we did it, would likely be a paid feature, unlike the software itself, which is free.
Mel, thanks for being so quick to answer questions.
posted
Okay, I've downloaded the software. I see that now, and it makes perfect sense. I'm still trying to feel my way around the program and haven't had much time to play with it yet.
Posts: 491 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I like the fact that Fahim isn't asking any kind of payment for his creations. You don't find people like that out there very often. I've downloaded the software, but with me, there's always a fairly lengthy learning curve with stuff like that, so it may take me awhile to offer up suggestions--and by then he may have already updated it significantly. Still I'm going to try it and see what I think as I'm planning on subbing a lot in the next couple of weeks.
Posts: 440 | Registered: Aug 2005
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